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Comment by rvz | Hacker News Reader

> TypeScript can die in a fire, and if you disagree you should join it.

This is probably a poor attempt at satire, but I'll bite. Actually yes, I'd rather disagree and jump in the fire to use TypeScript than to plod along using JavaScript with its clumsy type-system, designed by a team of clapping seals and to watch all the hell it truly brings.

If you think TypeScript should die in a fire then perhaps I'll see all companies using JavaScript in Dante's Inferno.

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I don't dislike TS because I love JS so insult it all you like. Besides TS is just a superset of JS so it's still got all of JS's warts. It's just a glorified linter.

I dislike TS because it provides no benefit to me. I already have a type checker, it's called a browser. I dislike TS because a bunch of people who wasted their time learning Java or C# are forcing me to deal with it because they can't do their job without a compiler to tell them how.

You need types, that's your problem, not mine.

It's great that you always write bug free code, but then typescript was not written for you, it was written for the rest of us who write the occasional bug, refactor an API that we didn't realize another developer was using, or can't quite remember the order or shape of args that a library call takes that we only use once every 6 months.

Why don't your tests catch your TypeErrors? You do have tests don't you?

Tests aren't an alternative to types. They're better together.

Why would you write a test instead of a type declaration if you had the choice?

TS checks at buildtime. It can't guard against runtime TypeErrors because JavaScript is a dynamic language (despite all the effort to "fix" that). Tests can catch all TypeErrors, TS can't. Why use two tools to do the job that one can do alone?

I agree that the type checker isn't that useful but I still use TypeScript for two reasons:

1. Accurate autocomplete.

2. Typing my domain models so they play well with autocomplete.

The first thing I do when I install an editor is turn all auto-completion off. Especially the auto-closing brackets. Drives me NUTS!

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